


Hearts Will Hold

by rories



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-26
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rories/pseuds/rories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mike is injured, Harvey recalls the good and the bad times in their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearts Will Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://suits-meme.livejournal.com/1484.html?thread=27340#t27340) prompt on the Suits meme.

He gets the call at 9:07 am.

Mike is supposed to be on his way in with finished drafts for the Stark contracts and three coffees.  Harvey had given him a little extra leeway this morning having kept Mike up til all hours the night before.  Let it never be said that he wasn’t the best boss ever. 

But Mike’s not in yet and Donna has been growing increasingly irritable without her coffee and then the phone rings.

It’s his cell and not the office phone, but Donna looks up anyway after he picks up, just in time to see all of the color drain from Harvey’s face.  She stands about four seconds before he does and doesn’t even have time to get around her cubicle before he’s past her, completely neglecting his briefcase and his work and the jacket he’d set over the arm of the couch.

“Harvey, what is it,” she asks, following him quickly on her treacherous heels.  “What’s going on?” and she barely has time to ask him before he’s sliding into the elevator and jabbing at the buttons.  His breathing is ragged and choked and it feels like an eternity before he looks up at her.

“It’s Mike.”

And the doors shut before either of them can say anything else.

\-----

He tells the cab driver he will pay triple the fair if he can get him to Beth Israel in the next five minutes. 

Morning rush hour and the guy gets him there in four.  Harvey pays him four times the fair.

\-----

The intake nurse is about as unhelpful as a box of rocks when she explains that Mike is still in emergency and please sir just wait and someone will come get you are you a friend or family?

Harvey resists the urge to threaten her with a lawsuit and hangs his head when the frustration hits.  “He’s my…” he starts but he can’t articulate the label he needs to be able to see Mike. 

 _Everything_ he comes up with later.

\-----

Their first date is an unmitigated disaster.  Seriously.  Everything that could go wrong, does, and Harvey almost wishes they could go back to client dinners and drinks with partners because at least those weren’t ending up completely terrible.  They’re called into a meeting at the last minute which makes them miss their reservation and if he were anyone other than Harvey Specter, they would have lost their chance in the restaurant completely. 

After that, everything spirals downwards.  They no longer carry the wine Harvey was going to order and Mike’s meal is wrong and has to be sent back and they’d replaced the violinist with someone not nearly as good. 

The second part of the date is even worse.  It’s literally the definition of Murphy’s Law and Harvey wants to curl up in a ball and die. 

\-----

Their first kiss, though.

\-----

_“Specter.”_

_“Harvey Specter? This is Nurse Cooper at Beth Israel Hospital.  I’m calling to inform you that Michael Ross has been admitted and as you are his next of kin, I’ve been asked that you come in as quickly as possible.”_

\-----

They manage to keep their personal life and their work life separate for approximately twelve hours.  Then Harvey manages to catch Rachel flirting with Mike outside her office and Harvey literally sees red.  Which is stupid because they’ve been _dating_ less than a day and he has no claim over Mike and so he really has no right to go up to Mike and rest his hand on the back of his associate’s neck (and try not to smirk when the other man shivers into his touch) and glare at Rachel as he leads Mike away. 

He’s not sure if it’s really any different from any other time he’s snatched Mike away from someone he’s talking to, but by the end of the day Jessica is calling them both into her office so he has to figure that Rachel saw something in his look that was never there before.

\-----

Donna shows up at the hospital ten minutes after Harvey sits heavily in a chair in the waiting room.  Unlike Harvey, who left in such a rush that he’d left his jacket and his sleeves still rolled up and his hair is starting to come apart from where he’d run his hands through it, Donna is remarkably put together.  The only outward sign of her distress is the flush high on her cheeks and the catch in her voice when she asks how Mike is.

When Harvey tells her that he knows nothing, she sits next to him and forcibly draws him into a hug.  He resists at first because he’s fine and Mike is going to be fine because he’s Mike and Harvey can’t live without him and if something happens well then there’s really no point in anything anymore.  But then Donna’s hands are rubbing large circles across his back and he realizes that he can hardly breathe he’s crying so hard.  He’s sobbing into the area where her shoulder meets her neck and his arms have wrapped themselves around her waist and if this were any other time she’s be berating him for ruining the fabric where he’s clutching at her blouse.

“I can’t lose him,” Harvey chokes out and he feels her palms press harder into his back. 

“I know.”

\-----

Thirty days before Mike’s lease is up on his apartment he is woken up by a loud pounding on the door.  When he finally opens it, it’s to two men in sweat stained coveralls embroidered with Calvin and Sons Moving Company and Harvey right behind them.

Mike can do nothing but splutter indignantly at first.

But then Harvey is crowding into his space, his nose to Mike’s temple, and is asking Mike to move in with him. 

His yes is swallowed up by Harvey’s mouth, but that’s okay.

\-----

Mike loves to cook.  He never really had a chance to do it during university and those harsh years immediately following, but when he’d been younger his Gram had taught him everything she knew.  And since she’d been a chef in a five-star restaurant, that was quite a bit of knowledge to pass on.  After his parents had died, one of the only things that kept his mind off the utter despair was cooking with his Gram.

Now that he lives with Harvey and can actually afford the ingredients for some of his favorite dishes, he wastes no time in making the kitchen his own.  It’s clear Harvey rarely uses the large room, so Mike has no qualms about taking it over.

Harvey knows about his boyfriend’s love of cooking so it comes as no surprised when he comes home some nights to find Mike standing at the stove, moving slightly to a record on the stereo, barefoot in ratty jeans and one of Harvey’s old Harvard shirts under a bright blue apron.  Harvey loves these nights because, one, it means he’s going to be very well fed, and two, it means he can sneak up behind Mike and wrap his arms around the younger man, palms resting on Mike’s chest under the apron.  And Mike just smiles, tilting his head to the side so Harvey can rest his chin on Mike’s shoulder. 

Harvey loves these moments best because he can forget about work and Mike’s past and their future and just breathe in the scent of Mike and perfectly cooked Italian food and just _be_.

\-----

Harvey’s not sure how long they’ve been there, but the doctor finally comes out and asks for the family of Michael Ross and Harvey’s heart rebels and ends up somewhere in the vicinity of his throat.  Donna has to help him to his feet, but as soon he has his feet under him, he straightens and he is, for a moment, Harvey Specter, Senior Partner, instead of Harvey Specter, Terrified Lover. 

If the doctor notices the catch in Harvey’s throat when he explains who he is to Mike, she doesn’t say anything.

“Mr. Ross was in a quite severe accident.  It appears that the vehicle that struck him was going slightly over the speed limit and the driver was quite possibly intoxicated.  As such, the injuries Mr. Ross has sustained are substantial.  His left femur was fractured so we pinned the bone together and he will eventually have to undergo physical therapy to regain strength there.  His right ankle is sprained and his collarbone was broken by the force of the fall as well as a few fingers on his right hand.  He’s got cuts and abrasions on most of his body and he lost a lot of blood from his bike nicking the femoral artery, but we were able to start replacing his blood rather quickly.  The biggest issue we see right now is the obvious head trauma he sustained in the fall.  He had some swelling in his brain and as such we were forced to drain some of that fluid.  Unfortunately, we won’t know the extent of the damage until he wakes up.”

\-----

To this day, neither of them remember exactly what the fight was about, they just remember the lingering feelings the fight had brought to the surface and the possessive way they’d held each other later that night.

\-----

Harvey feels the clench of Donna’s hand on his before he hears the doctor saying his name.  “Mr. Specter,” she says, completely professional while still giving off the air of sympathy doctors seem to have perfected.  “Mr. Specter?” she says again and finally Harvey can focus on her.  “Mr. Ross is stable at the moment and you will be able to go in and see him.  I should warn you that right now he looks rather frightening due to the tubes and cords.  And it is my duty to inform you that his recovery rests mainly on his head injury.  Any data we have right now is minimal at best until the swelling goes down and or he wakes up.  Would you like to see him?”

“Please.”

\-----

Mike refuses to sleep with him on the first date.  And considering the way that date had gone, Harvey is not at all surprised.

He won’t sleep with Harvey on the second date either even thought it goes so much better than the first. 

He is, however, willing to sleep with him on the third date, but unforeseen circumstances put a stop to that before they can get that far.

He gets food poisoning on the fourth date and a frantic phone call from Gram’s nursing home on the fifth.  By the sixth date Harvey has spent more time with his hand than he has anyone else and even Mike is starting to get snappy.

Which explains why the younger man leans forward and tells Ray to take them back to Harvey’s apartment as soon as he slides into the car on the evening of the seventh date. 

“I think we’ve wasted enough time,” he breathes into Harvey’s mouth and all Harvey can do is swallow hard and take a shaky breath.

“Yeah.”

\-----

Harvey doesn’t breathe when the doctor pushes open the door to Mike’s room and gestures him in.  He doesn’t breathe as he finally catches sight of the younger man.  He doesn’t breathe even as he takes a step forward.  Mike, Mike who is normally so bright and flushed and lively and _perfect_ is practically a shell of that former person.  Harvey’s fingers flutter near Mike’s hand, afraid if he touches Mike, everything holding this fragile person together will break and he will lose him forever.

Finally, after a moment ( _a minute an hour a month a year_ ), he lets the tips of his fingers drag over Mike’s wrist, the one not wrapped in gauze and bandages, and he _breathes_.  He lets his fingers skim over Mike’s skin and he can’t help the sigh of relief he lets out at the warmth Mike is radiating.  For one brief, heartbreaking moment, he had a thought that Mike would be cold, that the life in him was gone and all that was left was a body. 

\-----

Mike is clingy.  He loves to lie on Harvey and touch him and wrap his arms around him from behind.  He told Harvey once that it felt like he was going to crawl out of his own skin if he didn’t get to _touch_.  Harvey likes to think that he’s the only one to make Mike feel this way, the only one to drive him mad if he can’t draw his fingers along the back of Harvey’s neck or rest his forehead to Harvey’s spine. 

He wants to be the only one to ever make Mike _want_. 

\-----

The night they get engaged goes like this:

Occasionally Harvey gets a night off where he doesn’t have a pressing case to work on and so he just…lays.  He turns the television on to something mindless and stretches out on the couch, bare toes curling around the arm at the end, head propped up by a single throw pillow.  Tonight is one of those nights.  He fully plans on laying right here and watching a baseball game and possibly falling asleep before the seventh inning stretch.  That is, until Mike comes in and stretches himself across Harvey as if he is a 28 year old blanket.  He holds himself over Harvey with his arms and knees on either side, settling his chest on Harvey’s.

“Hi,” he says and Harvey can feel him in his whole body as Mike wraps his hands as far as they can go around Harvey. 

“Hi,” Harvey chuckles back because really he should have seen this coming.  Mike loves to lay on him, especially when he has these rare nights off.

And it doesn’t bother Harvey because Mike is warm and skinnier than he should be so it’s not like he’s heavy and he loves the reminder that Mike is _there_ and breathing and whole.

“We should get married,” Mike says simply, his ear resting over Harvey’s heart.

Harvey’s heart stutters and he knows Mike has heard because Mike tightens his grip on the older man.  There’s really no reason why they shouldn’t get married.  They’ve been together for over a year and Mike has been living in Harvey’s apartment for awhile and they’d even started paperwork for a joint bank account.  And to be honest Harvey’s been stopping in jewelry stores every once in awhile to look at rings.  They’re basically married in every sense of the word except for the documentation.

Because of this, Harvey hesitates only a moment more before breathing out an “Okay” and wrapping his arms around Mike’s back.

\-----

Mike’s ring is gone, tucked into a bag with his ruined clothes, wallet, and shoes.  His skin looks pale and empty without it, even with the IV and the heart monitor on his index finger and the stark blue-purple veins that stand out.  Harvey’s thumb rubs over his own ring for a moment, nail catching in the engraving at the bottom.  His other hand comes up to press against his chest, fingers curling over his heart as if he’s trying to force the pain out.  He feels his heart pounding under his palm, a thunderous roar that beats out in counter rhythm to the beeping from Mike’s machines.

He wants to tear open his own chest and give Mike his heartbeats, make Mike’s heart stronger with his because then, maybe then, Mike will color and open his eyes and there will be light again.

Instead, Harvey sits heavily in the chair near Mike’s bed and slips his hand around Mike’s wrist, fingers pressing on the pulse point there, another reminder that Mike is living. 

\-----

Donna only stays for a little bit, enough time to let the light tear fall down her cheek before wiping it away and pressing a kiss to Mike’s forehead.  Mike won’t know she did it, but Harvey still appreciates the gesture. 

She hugs Harvey, arms tight around his middle and face mashed against his shoulder and they _never_ do this but now they’ve done it twice in one day and Harvey even more grateful for the strength she gives him. 

When she leaves he settles further into the chair at Mike’s bedside and watches his face for any change.  It’s late afternoon and Donna will be back in a few hours with food that Harvey won’t eat, but for now, Harvey will sit and wait and wrap his fingers around Mike’s wrist once more. 

\-----

About four months after they officially start dating, Harvey gets the flu.  And not just the flu, but like The Flu.  The mother of all flus, putting previous flus to shame. 

And the thing about Harvey is he is the actual worst when he’s ill.  So when Mike comes home one day to find Harvey buried beneath a mountain of blankets and his fever reaching worrisome levels, he is ready for the whining and the attitude he knows will be following.  He’s been in this situation only a few times before when Harvey’s allergies act up and that one time he caught a cold.  One would have thought the world was literally ending the way Harvey carried on.

Mike drops next to his boyfriend on the couch, pushing the mounds of blankets out of the way.  Harvey is flushed, his hair stuck to his forehead and his eyes slightly glassy; Mike can feel the heat radiating from where he sits.  “Hey, babe,” Mike says, running a hand through Harvey’s sweat soaked hair.  “How you feeling?”

“I’m dying.”

Mike laughs, running his thumb over Harvey’s cheekbone.  “You’re not dying.  I won’t allow it.” 

“I am,” Harvey mutters.  “You’ll have to go on without me.  You can have everything.”

“Stop it.  Stop it right now.”  Mike leans forward until he’s nose to nose with Harvey who immediately leans back.  “You are absolutely, positively _not_ dying because if you were then I wouldn’t be far behind and I have too much shit to get done right now.  You and me?  We’re in this for the long haul.”

Harvey blinks, his gaze slightly watery, and then he huffs out a small breath.  “Noted.”

\-----

Doctors and nurses come and go, but Harvey doesn’t move from his chair by Mike’s bed.  He’s not sure how long he sits there, but it doesn’t feel like much time has passed when Donna arrives with two sandwiches and bottles of water. 

“Any word?” she asks, but it’s unnecessary because they both know Mike won’t be waking up tonight.  _If at all,_ Harvey doesn’t allow himself to think.

“He’s gonna be okay,” she says as she rests a palm against Harvey’s shoulder. 

Harvey says nothing.

\-----

It’s hours before he speaks and when he finally does his voice is rough and explodes into the silence.  “It’s my fault.”

Donna’s sitting on the opposite side of Mike’s bed, bare feet propped up and a book open on her lap.  “Sorry?” she says but he can’t tell if it’s because she wasn’t listening or because she doesn’t believe him.

“It was my fault,” Harvey says again.  “He – I gave him a ride home last night.  We put his bike in the trunk.  But I – I left earlier this morning so I took it out for him.”  He can feel his throat closing up as he continues, but there are no tears in his eyes as he stares hard at Mike.  “I forgot,” he starts and then has to swallow hard.  “I forgot to take out his helmet,” he whispers. 

Donna is up and across the room before Harvey can blink and then his vision is filled with red hair and worried brown eyes that are brimming with tears.  “You.  Shut up.  Right now,” she says and her voice is thick with anger and sadness.  “I would hit you for that thought if I thought it would work.”  She’s close enough that Harvey can feel her breath on his face, her forehead pressed to his own.  “That boy, that boy right there, needs you.  He needs you to be strong.  And saying shit like that…”  She takes a deep, shaking breath.  “This is _not_ your fault and if I ever hear you say anything like that again I really will hit you.”  She’s on her knees in front of him now, fingers hard around the sides of his head.  “You told me once that Mike was everything to you.  How do you think he would feel if he heard you blaming yourself?  This. Was. Not. Your. Fault.  This was bad luck and shitty driving.”

She stands slowly after it becomes apparent that Harvey isn’t going to reply and moves to go back to her chair.  A hand around her wrist stops her, however, and she turns back to look at him.  What she sees is an incredibly broken man who’s one thread of happiness may very well never wake up.  She moves back into his space and allows him to wind his arm around her waist until his cheek presses against her stomach.  Donna sighs and runs her fingers through his hair until his silent sobs dry.

\-----

They’re at work when Mike gets the call about his grandmother.  She’d been sick for awhile and Harvey was waiting for this day.  But Mike, Mike was never prepared.

He’s not with Harvey when his phone rings.  He’s in the middle of the associate’s pen working on briefs for Louis.  So no one sees the color drain from his face or hear his highlighter clatter onto the desk, a bright yellow line across the documents he was checking.  It’s not until Harvey comes to collect him that he knows something is wrong.

Mike can’t even speak when Harvey drops to his knees next to his associate’s chair, frantically asking him what was wrong.  He only stares blankly, his phone hanging in his limp fingers.  And it’s not until Harvey thinks the check the recent calls list that he understands what has happened.

The next few days are a blur for Mike, full of funeral arrangements and an absurd amount of flowers.  The funeral is small, just a few friends his Gram had left, Jenny and Trevor, Harvey, Donna. 

When Harvey and Mike get home after it’s all said and done, Mike sits heavily on the sofa.  He hasn’t cried yet but he knows it’s coming.  Harvey sits next to him, silent and watchful, there to catch him when he inevitably falls.  He feels Harvey’s hand slip into his own, fingers twining together and he doesn’t have to look at Harvey to know the older man is staring. 

He’s not sure how long he sits there before the tears start but as soon as the first one falls he is pulled into Harvey’s embrace and then he is sobbing, clinging to Harvey in a way he never has before.  “She was all I had left,” he says at one point and Harvey just kisses his temple and pulls him closer. 

“You have me.”

\-----

Jessica stops by the second day in the hospital and convinces Harvey to go home and shower and change and eat.  Had it been anyone else except perhaps Donna he would have said no, but it was Jessica and he could tell she was worried about him. 

When he returns a few hours later it is to Louis sitting in the chair Donna had left, flipping through a file and taking notes. 

Harvey doesn’t question why he’s there, just sits in his seat and grasps Mike’s hand again. 

Louis says nothing.

\-----

“I love you,” Harvey says, but it’s right after a really spectacular fight so Mike just chuffs and turns away.  He’s staring out at the New York skyline, as always impressed by the view their apartment afforded.  “I do.”  Harvey steps closer and nudges at Mike’s temple with his nose.  Mike can feel his warm breath on his ear and resists the urge to shudder.  “You are smart and funny and beautiful.  You make the best lasagna I’ve ever put in my mouth.”

“You love me for my cooking, then?”

“Yes,” Harvey mutters and Mike shoots him a glare.  “Yes, I love you for your cooking.  And everything else.  For your absurd lack of Star Trek trivia.  For the way you say my name when I’m taking you.  For the way you look on Sunday mornings when you sleep far too late and I spend far too much time staring.  I.  Love.  You.  And I…I cannot imagine a world without you in it.”

Mike does not look away during Harvey’s speech, just swallows hard when he’s done and leans toward him.  “You’re forgiven.”

\-----

It takes three entire days before he wakes up and when Mike finally opens his eyes, the entire room lights up and Harvey can see again.

\-----

Their wedding isn’t big, but everyone important is there.  Donna is Harvey’s best man and Jenny is Mike’s.  It’s not the most traditional of arrangements, but nothing they’ve done has every gone according to plan.  Jessica is there, as are Rachel and Louis.  It’s small and quick and absolutely perfect.  And when Mike slips his grandfather’s ring, passed down from his Gram before she passed, onto Harvey’s finger, he can’t imagine a more perfect day than this.

\-----

He’s confused the first few days and is really only awake a few minutes at a time.  The doctors slowly wean him off his medications until he’s able to stay awake for more than five minutes.  Harvey is there when they start the neurological tests and in true Mike form, he passes with flying colors.  The doctors call it a minor miracle.  Harvey just calls it Mike.

Most of the firm makes the rounds over the next few days, Jessica stops by with flowers, Louis with the promise of work when Mike is better, Jenny with a smuggled in bag of cookies and kiss to Mike’s forehead.  Rachel comes, but not at the same time as Jenny and brings a stuffed puppy with bright blue eyes that Harvey already hates.  Donna comes and goes, but Harvey knows she never steps foot out of the hospital. 

By the end of the week, Mike has been visited by practically everyone at the firm and those that hadn’t come send cards or call Harvey’s phone to talk to the younger man.  But Mike is ready to go home and Harvey is ready to have him there, so they keep each other company with whining and nagging the doctors about when Mike can be discharged.

\-----

Mike says ‘I love you’ first.  Of course he does because Harvey is still pretty new at this long term relationship thing and even though it’s been a respectable amount of time (eight months), Harvey still isn’t sure he can actually say the words first. 

So Mike does it and it feels like a pressure is taken off Harvey’s chest and it only takes him a second to say it back.  He whispers it into Mike’s mouth and follows it up with a kiss.  And once it leaves his mouth he can’t stop and he’s whispering against Mike’s skin, following each one with a wet press of his lips. 

“I love you,” he says and revels in the way Mike’s eyes shine with happiness.  “I love you,” he repeats and soaks in the sounds of Mike’s laughter.  “I love you,” once more and he’s sinking in the depth of devotion he feels for this young man. 

“I love you.”

\-----

He wakes up, six days after the accident, hunched over the edge of Mike’s hospital bed, head pillowed on one arm and the other draped over the top of Mike’s thighs.  There is a hand in Harvey’s hair, stroking lightly and Harvey doesn’t want to move, but the pain in his neck forces him up.

“Hey,” Mike whispers, voice still hoarse from sleep and pain.  He lets his hand drop and Harvey immediately grabs it, lacing their fingers together and pressing a kiss to Mike’s knuckles.

“Hi.”  He wants to say so much to Mike in that moment, looking deep into his baby blues.  Wants to tell him that he loves him, wants to spend the rest of his life with him, wants to spend multiple lives with him because one will never be enough.  Wants to tell him Mike has made him a better man, a better lawyer, a better lover.  Wants to tell him that he’ll never leave, this is it, this is forever, and that no one will ever mean as much to Harvey as Mike does.

Instead, he rests his head on Mike’s hip as he stares up at him, letting Mike drop his hand to comb through Harvey’s hair again. 

He doesn’t say any of those things because Mike already knows.

**Author's Note:**

> 4800 words and 11 pages later! This wasn't beta'd so please if you see any mistakes, please please please let me know.


End file.
